Since large internet providers are key to Canada keeping pace in a digital world, they must be able to pay for the billions of dollars of infrastructure upgrades needed to meet the soaring demand, say two of Canada’s largest internet suppliers.

“If Canada truly wants to be a broadband leader, believe me, it is companies like Bell, like Shaw, like Rogers, that we need in this country to continue to invest billions of dollars, so that we don’t fall behind, and that we do have an innovative digital economy, and we fire on all cylinders,” Mirko Bibic, senior vice-president of BCE told members of the House of Commons industry committee.

Bibic and Ken Stein, vice-president of Shaw Communications, said usage-based billing is the fairest way to price internet use because it forces those who use the most bandwidth to pay the most for the upgrades required to meet the demand they create.

However, groups representing small internet service providers say there is no evidence of congestion in the system. They argue that usage-based billing imposes extra charges for service that doesn’t cost the big internet providers more.

“We want a cost-based regime not a retail-minus-based regime,” said Bill Sandiford, president of the Canadian Network Operators Consortium. “We need that in order to effectively compete.”

Small providers said they want to see more competition and should be free to price internet services the way they want rather than be forced into usage-based billing.

“It should be up to the retail service provider how they want to price the different services that they want to make available to their customers,” Monica Song with the Canadian Association of Internet Providers said after the hearing.

Thursday, the contentious question of usage-based billing for internet, which has mobilized thousands of consumers and prompted Industry Minister Tony Clement to send the CRTC back to the drawing board, was back before the industry committee.

However, BCE and Shaw appeared to have a tough time convincing some MPs they aren’t overcharging.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague said the big internet providers are “giga-gouging” and risk stopping innovation “dead in its tracks.

“The charges that are being proposed to Canadians are exorbitant and do not have a basis in cost recovery to build out broadband.”

Earlier, the committee voted to invite Clement and industry department officials to testify before the committee on internet billing.